


You’re An Avenger Now

by LifeInkognito



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: B.A.R.F. | Binarily Augmented Retro Framing, Peter Needs a Hug, Post Infinity War, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 20:10:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14292501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LifeInkognito/pseuds/LifeInkognito
Summary: The war with Thanos is over, and earth is safe again. But earth's mightiest heroes are gone, save for one now nearly eighteen-year-old vigilante. After months recovering, Peter thinks his biggest worries for the time being are decathlon meets, girls and college applications. But as it turns out, maybe the Avengers aren't gone for good.





	You’re An Avenger Now

“Oh. Oh, wow. Oh my...” May sputters, lost for words. She’s standing behind his chair at the kitchen table, peering over his shoulder at the piece of paper in his hands. “I am _so_ proud of you, honey.”

 

Peter’s eyes trace the opening lines of the letter again and again: _Dear Mr. Parker, We are please to inform you…  We are please to inform you…_

 

He’s in. This is a big moment. Life changing, even. And he should be feeling something. Elation. Relief. Nerves. He searches inside himself, grasping for something, anything, some indication that the teenager who wanted this—who’d stewed over the online application for days, who’d had recurring nightmares about being rejected, back when his nightmares were that simple—is still inside of him.

 

May is thankfully too caught up in her own exhilaration to notice his lack of it, or maybe she just thinks he’s been overwhelmed into silence. She lays her hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “I always knew you were destined for great things. Ooh, we should celebrate! What about that Thai place you love in Hell’s Kitchen? Or tickets to a show? We haven’t done that in years.”

 

“Actually,” he says, “can I throw a vote in for take out and a movie?”

 

“That’s it?” May raises an eyebrow.  “I’m so happy right now that I’d probably say yes to anything. Dessert before dinner, throwing a house party—heck, I’d buy you alcohol. And you’re telling me that out of anything in the world, you want to spend this night doing what we do every Friday?”

 

He offers her a sheepish smile. “Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Then, for good measure, “I just feel like chilling out with you.”

 

May leans over him, puts a finger under his chin to lift his face towards hers. She searches his expression, seems to study the creases at the corners of his mouth. Then says, “Okay, the man of the hour has spoken. I’ll order the Chinese, you’re on Netflix duty.”

 

May disappears into her bedroom to get her cellphone. Peter focuses on folding the letter back into thirds, then shoving it into the envelope he’d ripped it out of. He walks over to the drawer where they keep the bills and important mail, and lays the envelope inside. He glances once more at the sender’s name and logo at the top left corner—Massachusetts Institute of Technology—before stowing it away.

 

***

 

This trip is long overdue.

 

He hitches a ride upstate on the top of a freight truck. When he left the city it was cloudy and windy, but over the course of the one-hour drive the sky has started to churn with thunderheads. By the time the security officer waves him into the private wing of the Avenger’s Facilities, it’s raining hard and he’s out of breath from sprinting across the field from the highway.

 

“You should have called Happy,” Pepper abnomishes, fretting over him as he struggles to pull the mask from his head—the soaked fabric has practically suction-cupped itself to his skin. “I’ll grab you a change of clothes. Just hold on.”

 

She leaves him alone in the common area of the Avenger’s living quarters, and he takes the chance to look around. He can count on one hand the amount of times he’s been in this room before, but even he can tell it hasn’t been in use lately. All of the remotes are laid out in a neat line on the console, rather than scattered around the couches. The pillows are plump, no creases. No water rings on the coffee table or crumbs. Everything smells of lemon-scented Lysol.

 

“Here you go.” Pepper hands him a pile of soft fabrics—a towel on top, sweatshirt and pants—and a plastic bag to store the sopping spider suit. She points down the hall. “Bathroom’s just over there.”

 

He strips out of the suit and wrings it over the sink to drain some of the excess liquid. The tech is waterproof, but the breathable fabric isn’t water resistant. He stuffs it into the plastic bag and then works on drying himself off. He wonders idly whose wardrobe Pepper raided. He doesn’t have to wonder long; when he unfolds the sweatshirt, it’s embroidered with a red and grey MIT logo.

 

Pepper’s sitting on the sofa when he returns, skimming through some document on her Starkpad. She looks up, gaze flitting from his face to the MIT sweatshirt, then back. When their eyes connect she looks almost embarrassed, but collects herself quickly, gesturing for him to sit beside her.

 

“The Sokovia Accords,” she says, tilting the screen so he can see the official government document she has open on the screen. “There’s still a lot of work to be done. The president is pressuring Congress to pass the revised bill as early as this month. Tony was working on altering the—”

 

He doesn’t want to hear this. “Why do they even care anymore?” Peter cuts in, bitterly. “It doesn’t matter. The Avengers are gone.”

 

Her expression hardens, and she says staunchly, “Not all of them.” Then she blinks, the spark of combativeness fading as quickly as is came, replaced once more with her usual professionalism. “There are still other enhanced individuals out there. People who need protection.”

 

“Right.” Peter lowers his eyes. He shouldn’t have lost his cool just then. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

 

“Oh, no, no, don’t apologize…” Pepper brushes a hand over his shoulder, a strangely maternal gesture from such a prim business woman. “This is a lot. I know. And Tony wanted to protect you from it as long as possible—” she ignores his grimace “—but you’re turning eighteen in two months.”

 

“Yeah,” Peter says, warily.

 

“We discussed…” She pauses, seems to rethink her words. “Tony _wanted_ you to join the team. Officially, that is. When you turned eighteen. And the offer still stands, if you want it.”  
  
He gapes at her, aghast. She’s watching him, waiting for some response, but he can’t think of what to say. Because no matter how many ways he looks at it, there’s one major, absurdly glaring issue she’s not mentioning: “But there _isn’t_ a team anymore.”  
  
“There can be.” She says it with all the confidence of a CEO of one of the world’s leading tech giants, a powerful person with a vision and the means to achieve it. Like it’s easy, or inevitable. “The world needs the Avengers.”

 

Peter’s chest tightens. He can feel himself slipping, his mind wandering backwards in time. He can’t do this again. When he’d returned to New York after the war, sixteen years old, alone, traumatized beyond belief, he’d been almost inconsolable. He’d survived, but he might as well have died in the vacuums of space—part of him felt like he had. It took weeks, and May and Ned’s herculean efforts, to bring him back to the land of the living. To remind him that he still had people to take care of. That he still had something worth fighting for.

 

And somehow, impossibly, he had managed to piece enough of himself back together to go on with some semblance of normality. Homework, decathlon practice, dinner with May, hanging with Ned, patrolling Queens. But it’s like trying to fix a shattered vase with Elmer’s glue. Not strong enough to stick, not really, and if he lets go for even a moment the whole thing will crumble back into shards. It’s exhausting work to keep himself functioning. It’s only at night, after he hears May’s breaths even in her room, that he can let his guard down, survey just how bad the damage is. And in his dreams, the battlefields, the ruins of planets, his idols and mentors and friends die over and over and over and over...

 

The constricting feeling in his chest is getting worse. Oh, he knows what this is. The beginnings of another anxiety attack. He gets them now and again, even since the Vulture, much worse since Thanos.  He’s learned how to manage them—Tony taught him some tricks to keep them at bay. He takes a long breath in through his nose, out through his mouth, focuses on Pepper sitting next to him, focuses on her red hair tinged with blonde draped over her right shoulder.

 

She’s still speaking. “We’ll help you. Nick Fury built the Avengers from nothing ten years ago. Now we have more resources, public support, brand recognition. And most importantly we have you. The world trusts Spider-Man.”

 

No, no, no. “The world doesn’t know what happened out there.”

 

“Tony trusted you,” Pepper says, like this is the only fact that matters, like this settles things. “He believed that you were the future of the Avengers.”

 

“You’re wrong,” he says. “All Tony did was keep me away from the Avengers. He didn’t want me to fight.”

 

“He didn’t want you to _die._ You were so young, Peter.”

 

He shakes his head. “He told me so. Up… there. Before the final battle. He said he was sorry he ever met me.”

 

He’s never told anyone that before.

 

It does the trick though, stops her in her tracks. She looks at him, long and hard, and must recognize that he’s fighting off an anxiety attack. But she doesn’t say anything about it, just scoots an inch away to give him space, waits for him to steady himself. It’s the best thing she could do in this situation. He wonders if she learned that because of Tony.

 

“Peter,” she says, softly, once he’s calmed down. “What you said about Tony. You have to know that isn’t true… You were both under so much stress, you were scared… He cared about you a lot.”

 

“I know,” he says. Behind her, outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the rain is letting up.  “I didn’t actually tell my aunt where I was going. She’ll flip out if I’m gone after dark.”

 

He trying to make a run for it, and she knows. “Wait, Peter.” Pepper puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him from getting up. “Before you go, let me just show you… about the Accords…”

 

She pulls up the Starkpad again and the screen illuminates the government document.  She swipes her pointer finger over it, scrolling through pages upon pages of fine print. “One of Tony’s priorities with amending the Accords was protecting enhanced minors. Raising the age limit for the registration requirement, so enhanced individuals under the age of eighteen wouldn’t have to come forward publically. He was working on gaining support from politicians on the inside—had a team of lawyers putting together a tort suit, in case we had to fight it in court. He was doing everything he could to keep you off the record until you were of age, Peter.”

 

Oh. He’d had no idea Tony was working on this. He’d actually thought—in those last few months before Thanos—that Tony was getting sick of always looking after him.

 

After the Vulture incident, Mr. Stark had taken on a more direct role in Peter’s life. He called every once in awhile in lieu of Happy, asking for reports on his patrols. Told him to come to his workshop once a month to update the suit. They talked about personal stuff sometimes too, like movie recommendations and Peter’s decathlon competitions and girls. Tony showed him the digital code for Karen, offered to teach Peter some programming basics. They’d actually become friends, or so Peter had thought. But then, a few months before Thanos, Tony had suddenly closed himself off. Started encouraging Peter not to come to the compound anymore, to limit his activities in Queens. Kept cancelling their appointments for suit tune ups because of last-minute trips to D.C., or private meetings with his lawyers. Peter had been embarrassed, thought maybe he’d been acting too clingy, too desperate. Thought he’d made Tony feel awkward, because Peter was so obviously desperate for a male role model in his life.

 

But maybe this means Tony hadn’t been pushing Peter away after all. Maybe, even then, Mr. Stark had been trying to protect him.

 

This is too much to process in one day. Pepper is unceremoniously ripping open boxes he’d spent months taping closed and shoving into the dark recesses of his brain. He wants to go home. He changes the subject. “I got into college.”

 

She smiles. Not a CEO smile, but a real one. “Peter, that’s great.”

 

He rubs behind his neck. “Thanks.”

 

She pulls him into a hug. It’s a good hug, kind of like May’s. “I’m really glad you finally came out here, Peter. We’ve missed you.”

 

He lets her walk him outside, holding his plastic bag with the wet spider suit in his arms. She summons a towncar to take him home.

 

“Peter,” she says, just before he goes to open the car door. “Please think about it. The fight’s not over yet. The world still needs Spider-man.”

 

That’s what he’s afraid of.

 

“Don’t be a stranger. I’m always here for you,” she says, and puts her arms around him and hugs him one last time.

 

***

 

In the next few weeks, May talks to him a lot about MIT. Keeps reminding him about the due date to accept the offer. He got into a few other universities too, but they both know MIT is his top choice, no competition. Still, it’s hard to focus on that right now when he’s still finishing his senior year—an exhausting finale to what he’s pretty sure has been the most insane few years of public schooling any teen has ever had to endure.

 

Ned and MJ have already accepted their top choices—Ned will be staying local at NYIT, MJ is going to California. All of the senior class is buzzing with excitement as their fates for the next four years of their lives are locked into place.

 

The one thing Peter has decided is, whatever he chooses, he can’t keep up this double-life anymore. This half-the-day-Peter-Parker, half-the-day-Spider-Man front. It’s a miracle, honestly, that he’s been able to keep it up as long as he has. He used to fantasize, sometimes, about telling the world his secret. About joining the Avengers and having this big press conference where he dramatically pulls off his mask as the cameras flash, and then the decathlon team would forgive him for skipping so many practices, and all the girls with crushes on Spider-man would have crushes on Peter Parker, and Flash would probably either faint or punch a wall and break his hand.

 

But he chose to keep his powers secret for a million better reasons: What if he became a government experiment, trapped in Area 51 with scientists probing at him for the rest of his life? What if some villain wanted to hurt him, or hurt his Aunt, or his friends, or attack his school? What if he became some sort of celebrity and he couldn’t ever walk outside his door again without getting swarmed by reporters and fans?

 

Those fears still exist. But he can’t live in limbo for the rest of his life. He needs to make a choice.

 

A full month goes by, and then Peter gets a package in the mail from Pepper. It’s not too big. It comes with a note:

 

_Peter— This was Tony’s last big project. He called it B.A.R.F. (we’re still working on the name.) They help you cope with traumatic memories, see things more clearly. Give them a try? We’re still working out the kinks, so any feedback is appreciated. —Pepper_

 

The package holds a pair of large, wide-rimmed glasses. He looks around for a button but doesn’t see any. Slips them onto his nose.

 

For a second, nothing. Then, some colors start to swirl in the glass. And slowly, an image forms, and he goes somewhere else.

 

Back to Titan. Standing on the deck of the Gaurdian’s ship. Staring out at the abandoned planet that would soon turn to smithereens.

 

Tony is next to him. He looks over at Peter. His expression is tight, pained, but not really scared—more like grim acceptance. Was Tony ever afraid of anything?

 

“Ready, Underoos?”

 

“I think it’s too late to say no now,” Peter says, and he tries to make it sound jokey, but it’s not.

 

“Probably right,” Tony agrees. “Alright kid…” And he drops a hand on one shoulder, then another, like he’s knighting him. “You’re an Avenger now.”

 

Peter tries to keep it cool, like Tony is. But they both know what’s about to happen. This is going to be bad. Really bad. People are going to die.

 

Spider-man’s put himself in harm’s way before, risked his life, but not like this. Those were split second decisions, more instinct than choice. This is staring death right in the eye, a suicide mission. And he keeps thinking about May, sitting at home, with no idea where he is. He can’t leave her. If he dies here, and she never even knows what happened to him, she’ll never recover. He can’t do this do her.

 

He knows he’s letting the charade slip. He’s acting like a scared kid instead of a hero. He can feel tears prickling at his eyes, so he pulls the mask over his head. But Tony sees anyway.

 

“Kid,” Tony says gruffling, staring ahead at the barren terrain. “I’m sorry I brought you into this. I never should have came to your apartment in Queens. You shouldn’t be here right now.”

 

Peter floods with embarrassment. They’re about to go into battle, and Tony knows—Peter’s not ready. He’s too young, too weak, to terrified.

 

“Make me a promise right now,” Tony says. “No freestyling on this one _._ You’re going to listen to me and follow orders—for once in your life. If I say run, you do it. If I tell you to leave me, you leave. That’s the only way this works, kid. Understand?”

 

If Tony’s ready to go to war with a kid as his second, Peter can at least do him the favor of being a well-behaved one. “Yeah,” Peter says. “I promise.”

 

He keeps it. And Tony dies.

 

The scene fades away. Peter rips off the glasses. “What the hell?”

 

His head is killing him, right above his brow, like a stress headache.

 

How was that supposed to be cathartic? Reliving your worst memories again and again? What kind of shit invention is that?

 

It was too real. He can still feel the pressure of Mr. Stark’s arms on his shoulders, knighting him: _You’re an Avenger now._

 

Is that why Pepper sent these to him? Is that what she wanted him to hear?

 

But still, useless as they are as therapeutic tools, the tech is groundbreaking. He looks down at the glasses, traces the rim, trying to figure out where the mechanism is that’s clearly tapping into the hippocampus. It’s gotta be somewhere on the handles, where the material presses against his skin. He holds the glasses up to his eyes again, experimentally pulling them back and forth on his nose. Then all the way back on.

 

The colors swirl, and Tony is next to him, expression tight and pained, but not really scared. Was Tony ever afraid of anything?

 

“Ready, Underoos?”

 

“I think it’s too late to say no now,” Peter says, and he tries to make it jokey, but it’s not.

 

“Probably right,” Tony agrees. “Alright kid…” And he drops an arm onto one of shoulders, then another. Knighting him. “You’re an Avenger now.”

 

“I’m not,” Peter says. “I’m not an Avenger. I’m just a scared kid.”

 

“Yeah, well, me too,” Tony says, half-smiling. “I’m sorry I brought you into this.”

 

“I got you killed. I couldn’t save you.”

 

“Kid. Look at me.”

 

It didn’t happen like this. Peter knows that. But if feels real. And when Peter looks at Tony full-on, he’s there—standing beside him on the deck of the ship in his red and gold metal suit, scuffed up, bleeding from a cut on his cheek, pupils dilated, breathing heavily from the low levels of oxygen on this planet.

 

“It’s okay,” Tony says.

 

“It’s not—”

 

“It’s okay, kid. You can cry.”

 

And Peter does start to cry. Big fat tears that are misting up the lenses of the glasses. “Shit,” he says, trying to wipe his eyes from under the frames without disrupting the image.

 

Tony clasps a hand on Peter’s shoulder, just like he used to when they were hanging out in the lab, when he was about to tell Peter something sarcastic but with a note of seriousness buried underneath.

 

“Hey hey hey,” Tony says, “the self-loathing guilt-trippy stuff is my thing. The optimistic nerdy overexcitable thing is your shtick.”

 

“Well, you’re dead, so,” Peter says, “someone’s gotta keep the legacy going.”

 

The image cuts out all of the sudden. Peter gasps, disoriented, standing in his room again, the vision gone.

 

“Hey there, kid…”

 

Tony’s voice. What the hell? It’s different now. Not like the B.A.R.F. technology’s version of Tony, puzzled together from Peter’s recollections. This isn’t being pulled from his rose-tinted memories; this is the real thing. Raw and haggard, the way he used to sound after pulling an all-nighter in the lab. Gruff, almost reluctant to talk, the way he always got when things were about to get sappy.

 

“I programmed this to only play if I’m gone, so, guess that’s happened... Bear with me, okay? This is already weird on my end, I bet it’s gonna be super weird for you. And for the love of god, don’t tell Pep. She’ll be all on my case about building a suicide note in the form of a multi-million dollar technological breakthrough.”

 

Holy shit. Peter lies down on his bed, stares at the ceiling. He thinks for a moment that maybe he should rip the glasses off his face. But he doesn’t. Tony’s message plays on.

 

“So, I just want to say… and I’m recording this because I know I’m probably going to fuck it up and I won’t have the balls to say it to your face—shit, sorry, language… I’m trying to say here is, I’m proud of you. Whatever happens, however I bit it, I bet you were awesome, kicked total ass. I know that because you’re a good kid.

 

“And I also know… that sometimes you’re way too much like me. You’re probably going to blame yourself. But don’t do that.

 

“You were just a little kid when Manhattan was attacked, I don’t know if you even remember. But I made a choice. I flew this nuke into a wormhole and I was pretty damn sure that was going to be it for me. Even since then, I’ve always had this feeling, like I was running on borrowed time, you know?  So... I don’t really have to double-think if I’m ready to die out there protecting earth. I already made the decision. If that makes sense… I guess it does.

 

“And you should also know, I’ve prepared for this. Pep and Happy are going to be well taken care of. And I’ve got an account set up for you, when you turn eighteen. Enough so that you can go to any school you want—outshine all the other dweebs and trust-fund babies at whatever Ivy prep hell you end up going to. And… and also, I’ve been thinking about the Avengers. You know, the next gen of heroes—who’s going to pick up this dog and pony show after we’ve clocked out. And well… That’s you.

 

“At the risk of sounding way too much like my dad here… I always wanted to leave the world better than I found it. And I’m leaving that in your hands. You’re the future, Underoos. You and your Gen Z, chatsnapping, avocado eating brethren. So… Avenge me. Keep our legacy going, but also, be better than I was. You’re already better than me.”

 

And then it’s over. Silence.

 

“Crap. Crap. Crap!” Peter pulls the glasses off of his face, throws them across the room. Rubs his temples, trying to make the headache subside. “Shit.”

 

He’s crying. He turns over into his pillow and cries like he hasn’t since the day he returned to New York, when he showed up at his apartment door dirty and bruised, and threw himself into his terrified and confused Aunt’s arms.

 

***

 

MIT acceptance confirmations are due today.

 

Or, that is, they’re due in the next twenty minutes. Peter sits in front of his laptop, watching the digital clock switch from 11:39 to 11:40 p.m.

 

May assumes he’s already done this. He didn’t exactly lie to her, but he might have made some grunting noises that could be construed in multiple ways.

 

She’ll kill him if he doesn’t do this. She’ll be so disappointed. Say he’s wasting his potential.

 

The clock reads 11:49 p.m.

 

A big part of him is excited by the idea of lecture classes, college girls, debate teams, dorm roommates… And being normal. Being Peter Parker again. Having lots of friends and being involved with clubs without having to bail. Getting a real internship.

 

11:53 p.m.

 

This used to be the most important thing in the world to him. His education, his friends. His future. But it all seems so small now. So tiny in the grand scheme of things.

 

And so selfish. To disappear to some campus in Massachusetts for four years while, somewhere else in the world, people need help. Crime is up in Queens. The Accords still need amending. And without the Avengers guarding earth, the planet is vulnerable to another attack.

 

11:59 p.m.

 

It’s time to choose. Is he the kid who goes to college, maybe gets a girlfriend, finds a cool job, has a life? There are other ways to help people than being a superhero. 

 

Or, does he call Pepper? And then what? Start putting together a new team. Revive the Avengers. Finish the path that Tony set him on.

 

It’s like Tony said. Spider-Man was willing to risk his life to save earth once. And when the next threat comes, he won’t hesitate to do it again. That’s the sort of choice you don’t need to make twice. 

 

The clock switches to 12:00 a.m. and the acceptance portal on the MIT prospective student website closes.

 

He shuts his laptop.

 

On his nightstand are the folded white-rimmed B.A.R.F. glasses. He picks them up, toys with the handles, watches the light from his desk lamp reflect across the glass lenses.

 

Tony’s voice replays in his mind. _Avenge me_. _Avenge me._ _Avenge me_.

 

Peter places the glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I will. Promise.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Who doesn't love a good, casual super sad fic? This was in my head after the trailers... we'll see if it's totally blown out of the water after the movie comes out in 2 weeks. Thanks so much reading.


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